


Oh, everything.

by napoleonborntoparty



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: ALL THE GOOD STUFF, Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Choking, Established Relationship, Idiots in Love, Kylo Ren Has Issues, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Space Nazis, for COMEDY, i had to include millicent, i love rey but hux doesnt, no one in the first order gets paid enough to deal with this, post-tlj kind of, ren and hux are TRASH BOYS, someone dies but it's only talked about, starts with the throne room scene, this is a hot hot mess, u know the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 09:12:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14257692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/napoleonborntoparty/pseuds/napoleonborntoparty
Summary: The aftermath ofThe Last Jedi. General Hux tries to deal and Kylo Ren just wants a little bit of lovin’.





	Oh, everything.

**Author's Note:**

> first fic on here and honestly.... formatting the paragraphs nearly did me in

“Our Supreme Leader is dead! We have no ruler -!”

Kylo Ren turns, and a shower of sparks cuts his figure like a statue of death. His arm extends, his fingers curl. Hux claws at his neck. Ren bares his teeth. “The Supreme Leader,” he snarls, “is _dead_.”

 _Let the past die,_ his own voice comes back to him. He grips the phantom fingers constricting Hux’s throat tighter.

Hux crashes to his knees like a puppet with the strings cut.

 _Kill it,_ the voice says. _Kill him._ Hux is scrabbling pathetically at his own throat, his mouth working around words he can’t draw breath to say. _Kill him, kill him, kill him_. But something blooms unbidden in Ren’s chest as he watches Hux gurgle in anguish. _Kill him_. He relaxes his hand a fraction, just for a moment, just a moment to see, just to _see_ –

“Long…live…the…Supreme…Leader.”

Hux falls forward onto all fours, taking in huge gasps of air. Ren stalks forward like a predator. Long strides that don’t give Hux enough time to do anything more than gag horribly before Ren replaces the invisible choking pressure on Hux's throat with his actual hand. He draws Hux back up onto his knees and Hux’s eyes are blood-shot and wide and awful.

Ren kisses him so hard it hurts.

He can’t help himself. He licks into Hux’s mouth and bites down. He’s surprised at the revelation that he’s missed this. Since FN-2187 had absconded with Poe Dameron, they’d barely had the time or the inclination to exchange more than a few angry glances and terse words, let alone anything else. Hux’s whole body is shaking violently and if he did want to fight Ren off, he’s too weak to do so.

The moment Ren pulls back, Hux spits square in his face.

Ren considers again that perhaps he might be better served if he simply snapped Hux’s neck.

_Kill it, if you have to._

He doesn’t.

He wipes his face with one hand (and he does not think of sea spray or tears or _Ben, don't go this way_ ). He squats down in front of Hux and slides his hand up from his throat to the back of Hux’s head. Takes a fistful of his hair and wrenches him forward so their faces are millimetres apart. “I like you like this.” Hux’s breathing is feeble on Ren’s neck. “Say it again,” he hisses into Hux’s ear. “Say it _now_.”

Hux shifts so his own mouth is near Ren’s ear, and he wheezes out, “Fuck you.”

Ren just laughs. “Promises, promises, General.”

Something explodes with a deafening boom inside the guts of the _Supremacy_. Ren shoots up, letting Hux slump onto the floor. He looks down on him and thinks Hux appears small at his feet, even as he glares daggers with watery eyes. Ren realises with a sickening jolt that the tears coursing down Hux’s face aren't just from the pain or hatred or lack of air. He is weeping. His voice is scraped out and ruined when he says, “If you're going to kill me, just _get on with it_.”

“Not today,” Ren says as blandly as he can muster, and turns on his heel. He’s halfway to the door when he tosses back over his shoulder, “Get up and follow me. We have work to do.”

It takes all Hux’s strength to stand.

–

Hux finds Ren crouched on the floor in the abandoned control room on Crait, staring at the dirt. He moves tentatively, approaching as one might a wounded animal, until he is at Ren’s shoulder.

“The rebels have fled,” Ren says without moving.

Hux can't hold back a loud snort of derision. “Have they really? I hadn’t noticed. Maybe it was during that ridiculous scene you made with Skywalker.”

“Skywalker is dead.”

Hux narrows his eyes. “You didn’t kill him.”

“No,” Ren says, and Hux watches his hands ball into fists. “But he is still dead.”

An inexplicable rage detonates inside Hux’s chest. “Now I can’t be one hundred percent sure, seeing as I had just nearly been put through the wall of a ship thanks to you, but I think he was a distraction. Which you fell for like the gigantic moon jockey that you are.”

Hux can see a muscle ticking in Ren’s clenched jaw. “You will not address me like that.”

“My apologies. Supreme Gigantic Moon Jockey.”

Ren is suddenly on his feet and in Hux’s face. “Say one more thing, Hux. I want a sweet memory of what it was that finally provoked me to pull your spine out through your throat.”

Hux is immobilised by his own fury for a moment, before he breathes out through his nose. They cannot both be pillars of unrestrained anger. Despite Ren's dedication to providing evidence to the contrary, Hux knows that is not how you win wars.

“The rebels have fled,” he repeats.

“Yes,” Ren seethes.

“So. What are we still doing here?”

“I’m going to contact the rest of the fleet to scramble and relocate the Resistance.”

“Would you say that boarding the _Supremacy_ is entirely safe for us –”

“Not us, Hux. Me. You are not coming.”

Hux feels his guts go cold. “I don’t understand.”

Ren pushes past him and out into the landing bay. Hux follows and tries not to seem like he’s in too much pain to keep up. “You will stay here with the ground troops to commandeer any and all of the Resistance’s reconnaissance tech and track any of the distress signals they sent out.”

“I feel I would be much more use –”

Ren rounds on him. “I don’t care what you feel. This is what I am telling you to do and you will do it.” Hux scowls but remains silent, nodding curtly. “Good. Return to the _Finalizer_ within the next thirty hours.”

“The _Finalizer_?” Hux says, mouth dry.

“Snoke’s ship is in ruins, yours sustained minimal damage. It will be the First Order’s new flagship. Congratulations. I’ll leave a pilot here so you can take my _Upsilon_.”

“Your _Upsilon_.” Hux’s heart is in his throat.

“Is there an echo in here?” Ren asks, turning his head as if listening out for something. This crude show reminds Hux that Ren was raised in the Republic, where Hux assumes this would have been deemed appropriate. The culture of the First Order did not make room for jokes, in the wake of defeat or any other time.

Now Ren gives Hux a sour look. “Unlike you, I don’t care about slumming it with a few stormtroopers.”

Hux considers this all a pretty piss-poor attempt to demean him, and does not deign to reply. They stand glaring at each other for a moment. Ren’s eyebrows draw together and Hux realises he’s waiting for Hux to thank him for giving him his ship. _I’ll be dead in my grave before I thank you for anything_ , Hux thinks. Ren’s lip twitches and Hux is for once gratified that Ren indiscriminately rifles through his thoughts.

With that, Ren stomps away, jerking his head as he passes a small gaggle of troopers, who hurry out of the base after him.

–

Hux has been back on-board the _Finalizer_ for around ten hours. He's spent the entire time holed up in his office doing a massive overhaul of various aspects of almost every echelon of the First Order. There were things still left over following the destruction of Starkiller Base and now with the… _unprecedented_ change in leadership, Hux has even more paperwork to do. He’s currently trying to massage away the beginnings of a migraine when his comm link alerts him to a stormtrooper at his door. He groans. Straightening his uniform and smoothing back his hair from where he’s been running his hands through it, he goes to his door. As soon as it slides open, the trooper stands to attention.

“What do you want?”

“General Hux, sir, it’s Lord, uh, I mean, Supreme Leader Ren, sir. He sent me. I’m part of his guard now."

"How rewarding that must be for you," Hux deadpans.

The trooper valiantly remains at attention and carries on, "He’s asked I take you to him, sir.”

Hux scoffs and pushes past him. “I can find my own way to the bridge, thank you.”

But the trooper just follows behind him, skittish. “Uh, Supreme Leader Ren isn’t on the bridge, sir.”

“Well, where is he then?” Hux carries on walking. If Ren wants a private meeting with him, all the command or audience rooms go off the bridge anyway, and Hux will meet him there.

“His throne room, sir.”

Hux stops dead. He turns very slowly back to gape at the trooper. “Repeat what you just said.”

The trooper shifts uncomfortably, moving his blaster from hand to hand. “His throne room, sir.”

Hux shakes his head. “Ren doesn’t _have_ a throne room.”

Hux thinks it’s strange how despite the uniform anonymity that stormtrooper armour affords, he can tell this trooper is dying inside. “General, sir, he, the Supreme Leader, it’s next to his chambers, sir. When he arrived, he set the officers to work, and us, sir and then, he built it himself, sir. A repurposed barrack, from the AB squadron, sir.” Hux remembers the AB squadron, the first troopers the First Order trained, loyal and seasoned soldiers. They’d ended up being the butt of a fair few jokes since Ren had been stationed on the _Finalizer_ , because no one envied the poor troopers who had to sleep near him. They had all perished on Starkiller Base.

The stormtrooper is practically hopping from foot to foot now, clearly terrified of what Ren will do if Hux refuses to comply. “Sir, Supreme Leader seemed quite, uh, insistent, sir. Uh, impatient, if I may say so, sir.”

Hux laughs, walking back over the trooper. “Impatient? Ren? You don’t say. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

Ren’s throne room is not, as Hux feared, a gaudy, ostentatious affair like Snoke’s had been. It really is just the re-purposed quarters of a stormtrooper unit. The walls still black durasteel, the lights still bright and stark. The bunks are gone – Hux has a sudden mental image of Ren dragging a large pile of them to an airlock, huffing and snorting like a bantha, and then simply launching them out into space.

In fact, the room can only be described as austere. There is only a desk with a data pad and Ren’s lightsaber on it, a holocomm, and near the back, a large, uncomfortable-looking seat on a dais. Ren’s throne, in which the man himself is lounging.

The stormtrooper leads him into the room. “Supreme Leader,” he says in what Hux considers an admirably steady voice, “Here’s General Hux.”

“I can see that,” Ren replies and Hux hears the stormtrooper exhale shakily through his helmet. Ren waves his hand in a miraculously harmless gesture. “All of you, out.” The guards can’t seem to leave quick enough. When they’re gone, Ren raises his eyebrows at Hux pointedly.

“You really should kneel,” he says.

“Yes, I _do_ recall you mentioning you liked me that way," Hux replies in a voice dripping with contempt, “But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay standing.”

“It’s not all the same to me.” Ren has actually got one of his long legs hanging over an arm of the throne. Hux can feel his blood pressure rising. “I could always make you.”

“Make me, then.”

A gloved hand twitches, but Hux remains on his feet. Instead, Ren just flattens his palm against the arm of the throne. “Happy to be home?”

“Ecstatic,” Hux replies, figuring sarcasm is the only way to survive this fresh hell. “Supreme Leader, I was really rather busy so if we could keep this brief –”

“What do you think of my throne room? Speak freely.”

Hux has to make a concerted effort not to let his jaw hit the floor at this non sequitur. Ren can’t be serious. But when Hux meets his eyes, he tilts his head to one side in that way he does when he’s curious. _Like a dog_ , Hux thinks, then says aloud, “I think if you’ve been sat in that chair feeling sorry for yourself since you returned to the _Finalizer_ nearly three days ago, there'll be an imprint of your fat arse on it before long.”

He’s glad the stormtroopers are not around to hear him say this. He thinks the one who brought him here might have died from the shock.

But Ren seems delighted by Hux's cattiness. He grins, all teeth. “Been thinking about other places you'd have me sit, General?”

Hux scoffs at the mere suggestion of what Ren is implying. “I don't know about you, but I've been a little distracted of late, so no, I can’t say I’ve had the time to dwell on those kinds of notions.” _Or any other pointless fantasies I may have once had_. He wants to hurt Ren, so he goes for below the belt. “Besides, you've moved on, haven't you, Supreme Leader? To that rebel girl, hm? Excuse me if I feel somewhat offended.”

Ren, disappointingly, does not even flinch at the mention of the girl. “You’re making a joke. That's cute, Hux.”

Hux sighs, loud and purposefully obnoxious. No one gets him riled quite like Ren. “Did you need something specific or is your new promotion so dull you called me in here just to exchange lukewarm banter?”

“You smiled at me the other day, do you remember?” Ren props his chin up in one hand, leaning his elbow on the arm of the throne. “Just before Snoke disciplined me for the final time. Your lip was still bruised from when he dressed you down in front of the bridge crew. You aren’t a big smiler, are you, Hux? That stiff upper lip always cemented on... until I slammed you into the side of my ship, that is.”

Ren smiles again then, like Hux’s squeak when Ren flung him across the cockpit and he crumpled onto the floor in pain was a funny little memory to him. Hux feels bile rising in his throat and he’s sure he’s giving Ren a look of such potent loathing, it’s surprising when the flesh doesn’t melt off Ren’s face. Ren must sense the hate spilling off Hux in waves because he finally draws his leg back from its ludicrous position over the throne’s arm. He sits with his knees far apart, feet planted, like he thinks this makes him look powerful. Hux thinks of times where Ren with his legs spread wide had been a thrilling sight for Hux, a heady one. Something for his eyes alone. He is brought back from these thoughts by Ren chewing his lip. If Hux didn't know better, he'd say Ren looks contrite.

“Perhaps that was a bit much. But you were annoying me.”

“ _Annoying_ you?” Hux hisses, appalled. “I was trying to win that battle for you and you humiliated me in front of my men. You made me look like a fool.”

“And Snoke always made you feel like a greatly valued asset of his regime? I think not. You feared him. Hated him.”

“Yes,” Hux admits.

“But you don't fear me.”

“No.”

“Hate me?”

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

Hux is done. He marches right up to Ren then, teeth bared, and slams his hands down on the arms of the throne. “I was going to kill you, you know,” he snarls. “When you lay unconscious in Snoke’s throne room. Put a blaster bolt through your eye.”

Ren faces him down, unfazed. “But you didn't.”

Hux wants to scream. “What do you _want_ from me, Ren? To say I thought you were going to kill me and I bowed to you despite every instinct I possess because I didn't want to die, much less by your hand? That it hurt me when you threw me into that console like I was a worthless stormtrooper when I believed that we may be finally working together instead of pitted against each other? Well, there, you have it. I hope it pleases you.”

Ren blinks at him.

Before the hooded wraith had swept onto the _Finalizer_ , Hux had prided himself on his ability to stare his crew out. He could meet their eyes and his subordinates would always look away first. Kylo Ren does not look away. He meets Hux's gaze and hasn't faltered yet. Ren's eyes remind him of his boyhood footprints left on the paths of Arkanis, the mud squelching and rising around his little feet. Wet and dark and unwavering. Darth Vader's grandson and heir, with Leia Organa's soft brown eyes.

“I'm sorry,” Ren says.

“You are not.”

“I still want you.”

“I don't care.”

“You want me too. I felt it just now.” Ren reaches for Hux but Hux flinches back from the throne like he’s been burned.

“May I go?” He rasps. Ren nods brusquely and Hux doesn’t wait to be told twice. He walks a little faster than he'd like to admit towards to exit.

“I killed Snoke.”

Hux freezes.

“It wasn't Rey. It was… me. I did it. Because he was unworthy to hold the universe at his fingertips. Because I'm more powerful than him. Because I wanted to.”

Hux looks back at Ren, who is leaning forward desperately in his throne. “You think I'm stupid, Ren? I know you killed him.”

Ren’s eyes widen, confused. “How?”

Hux turns back around, arms folded. “As disgusting a notion as it is, I do know you. That girl might be good but she’s not as good as you. And besides, didn't the old Sith always outgrow their masters?”

Ren looks pained. “I'm not...a Sith.”

“What are you then?”

“I –”

“Let me tell you,” Hux snaps. “You're our Supreme Leader. So, _lead us_. Sit up straight in that stupid throne and tell me what you need me to do. The Resistance is limping. I’d say we cut them off at the knees, but the neck may be more appropriate.”

Ren is breathing like he’s run a race. He’s nodding. “Find me the _Millennium Falcon_. I don't care what it takes. Find it and blow it out the sky. Find any outposts of the Rebel Alliance and destroy them before the Resistance gets them. Intercept every wavelength the galaxy has. The Resistance will be communicating through them somewhere. If you identify anyone aiding them, I want you to obliterate them. Their families. Their homes. I want a scorched earth policy.”

“Very well,” Hux nods. As he turns, he sees Ren slump back in his throne, face in his hands.

 _Heavy is the head that wears the crown_ , Hux thinks, without even the barest hint of sympathy.

–

Hux is getting ready to turn in for the night when there’s a knock at his door. He ignores it because he knows who it is. Only one person knocks on this, or any, Star Destroyer. He takes a good amount of time arranging his greatcoat with perfect precision for tomorrow.

The knock comes again, more impatient, and then, “Hux. It’s me.”

“General Hux isn’t here right now,” he calls back. “Please try again another time. Or better yet, don’t.”

“It’s Ren. Open up.”

“I know who it is.” Hux snaps, pulling on his sleeping thermals. “I’m going to bed. Go away.”

“It’s a matter of urgency, General.”

Hux can’t help but laugh at this sad attempt. “It’s not, though, is it? You’re just trying to shave years off my life every time you draw breath.” There’s silence outside the door. Hux stands in the middle of his room with his hands on his hips.

“Are you or are you not lurking outside my rooms glaring at the door?”

A pause and then, “...I don't lurk.”

Hux capitulates. The quicker this is dealt with, the quicker he can sleep. He marches to his door and pushes the button that releases the locks. The door slides open to reveal his least favourite person in the entire galaxy – which is saying quite a bit. Hux stands ramrod straight, like he’s not in his pyjamas. He positions himself in the middle of the doorway, so Ren can’t get in. “Supreme Leader, to what do I owe this incalculable pleasure?”

“You don't have to call me that when we’re alone, Hux.”

“I thought you enjoyed it. Not feeling conflicted, are we? What would old Snoke say?”

“Shut up, Hux.”

“Not sure he’d say that. Maybe.”

Ren moves toward him but before Hux can do anything, they’re interrupted by a chirruping noise at Hux’s feet. Hux's ginger cat has come to investigate her master’s visitor, blinking owlishly up at them. Ren looks down. “Hello Millie,” he says, like he's greeting an old friend. “Remember me?”

“Don't speak to my cat, Ren.”

Clearly not enthralled that it's just Ren here for another late-night visit, Millicent turns and walks back into Hux’s chambers, tail in the air. He and Ren both watch her retreating form.

“If Snoke had known about her,” Ren says quietly, “he’d have killed her.”

Hux’s hands instinctively clench. “I don’t doubt that.”

“I’m the Supreme Leader now.”

 _You won’t take her away from me. I won’t let you._ Hux bites his tongue against saying this. He will not appear vulnerable, even though Ren already knows how much Hux values his pet. Ren has sat in Hux’s bed and watched Hux coo to her when she'd hide inside the wardrobe, or carry her around his chambers like a baby on his rare days off. Ren has fed her from his own hand. Hux is sure Ren is fully aware that nothing halts the downward drag of some inner turmoil Hux might be experiencing like the bat of her little paw against his face.

Ren purses his lips. “I’m not going to do anything to her, Hux.”

“I’ve told you before not to stick your filthy fingers into my head.”

“ _Into_ your head? You practically screamed that at me.” Then he leans in and kisses Hux on the lips.

Hux pulls back immediately. “No. We are past that now.”

“I disagree.” Ren leans in again.

Hux takes a step back. “Don't try and seek comfort in me just because you lost that girl.”

“It's not about that, Armitage.”

“What's it about, then, Ben?”

At that, Ren hauls off with a blistering, shocked look. Hux just sneers. “See? I can play that game too. And I’m probably better at it than you are.”

“Don’t call me that again,” Ren says, petulant and offended.

“Why?” Hux leans against his doorframe. He watches how Ren’s eyes trail down his body, taking in what Hux supposes must seem like an uncharacteristically casual stance for him. “What’ll happen if I do?”

Ren scowls and his bottom lip actually juts out a little. It strikes Hux that this may not even be a conscious reaction, and against all his better judgement and every carefully honed survival instinct, he makes a decision. He grabs a fistful of Ren's cowl. “Come in, you overgrown child. I can't stand the sight of you looming in my doorway a moment longer.”

Hux pulls Ren’s mouth down to his, too preoccupied to object when the door to his chambers shuts behind them with a flick of Ren’s fingers.

Later, they are in Hux’s bed, covers shoved down by their feet. Hux is sat up, smoking and watching the service droid pick up the clothes strewn over the floor. Ren is lying with his head pillowed on Hux’s thigh, tracing circular patterns on Hux’s knee with his finger.

“That tickles,” Hux gripes, jerking his leg a little. Ren stops.

“Those things will kill you,” he remarks, watching Hux tap away the ash.

“You’ve seen me smoking before.”

“And I still find it strange. You never struck me as the type to indulge in practices that aren't good for you.”

Hux takes a deliberately long drag, the smoke flowing out his nostrils. He considers Ren with raised eyebrows. “I indulge you, don't I?”

By way of response, Ren uses the Force to yank Hux down so he's flat on his back.

“Easy!” Hux squawks, abandoning his cigarette to the ashtray for fear of setting the bed on fire. Ren hooks Hux’s knees over his shoulders and moves his head down between them, effectively ending the conversation.

Afterwards, Hux is sprawled out, boneless. His cigarette is mostly burnt down now but he retrieves it anyway. Ren settles his head on Hux’s chest. Hux strokes his free hand through Ren's hair and frowns slightly. “What happened to that bucket of yours?”

"Hm?" Ren hums, blissed out at the feel of Hux’s fingers.

Hux raps his knuckles against Ren’s skull. "Your helmet?"

"Oh. Snoke said I would never be Darth Vader. That I was just a child in a mask."

"Really?" Hux says, unimpressed. "I could have told you that without all the pomp and ceremony."

Ren makes a vexed noise. "I smashed it up in the elevator."

"Colour me surprised."

"Why do you ask?" Ren shifts so he's looking up at Hux. He squints a little, his scar twisting. "Sick of this ugly mug?"

Hux scoffs. "Hardly." Then he realises what he's said. Ren realises too, and gasps in faux-shock.

"Armitage –” Hux tugs on his hair but that just makes Ren writhe in pleasure. “Be still my heart,” Ren continues in a mockingly high and breathy voice. “You just complimented me. On physical attractiveness, no less."

“I did no such thing. You are confused." A shit-eating grin is spreading over Ren's face. "Consider this, Ren. If you had that mask on, you couldn’t have just sucked my dick."

Ren ignores him and, for lack of a better term, _snuggles_ closer to Hux. He whispers conspiratorially, "I'd like a wedding on Naboo. What do you think?"

Hux rolls his eyes so hard it feels like they almost fall out his head. "I think if you say another word, I'm going to put this cigarette out on you."

Ren leans up and places a wet, warm kiss on Hux’s cheek.

–

Hux is in the refresher at around five a.m. when he hears a yell from his rooms. There's a hot curl of something in his chest when he realises he knows it's Ren waking from a nightmare, only by virtue of having Ren in his bed often enough for it to become a habit. He carries on until he sees a monochromatic dark and pale form enter the ‘fresher through the steamed-up glass. Ren opens the door and steps into the shower with him, looking hunted.

"Supreme Leader," Hux says, slightly taunting, ready for Ren to laugh or turn angry. But Ren does neither. He wraps his arms around Hux's waist and hides his face in the sanctuary offered between Hux's shoulder and neck. Hux stands there with the warm spray in his face. "Didn't your mother teach you to self-soothe as a baby?" He asks but is immediately uncertain if he meant this as cruel as it came out. "Who was it?" Hux continues. "The girl? Skywalker? ...Snoke?" Ren mumbles something into Hux's shoulder. "What?"

 _My father_ , flits across the surface of his mind, soft as a feather, in a deep but wobbly voice. Hux takes in a harsh breath.

"Han Solo is dead," he says. "What harm can his ghost do to you now?"

Ren says nothing for a moment.

_He pretended he didn't love easily but he did. My mother. Luke. Me. Rey. He barely knew her but… And she loved him too. She cried for him. Asked me why… but I didn't care about why. I just.... I wanted her. To rule with me. I wanted her with me. I needed her for when I was weak. She knew that, and she left anyway._

Hux doesn’t like thinking about whatever is going on between Ren and the scavenger girl. He hates being outdone by anyone – at _anything_. “It’s very early in the morning to be admitting this sort of thing, Ren.” Ren just holds him tighter and doesn't let go. Hux blows out a long breath. “We all have something that makes us weak, you fool. You're not a god. You're a man.”

_What makes you weak?_

"Ren, come now." Hux says. He doesn't even want to touch that question. His hands drift up Ren's back, skimming over the wet muscles there. "I have to wash."

After a moment, Ren draws back, and says in his real, low voice, "Wash then."

He slips down onto his knees. Hux tuts, even though seeing Ren kneeling before him lights up a flame low in his stomach. "We really haven’t got time for that."

"I'll be quick," Ren murmurs, lips parted invitingly.

"Don't whinge if I get soap in your eyes," Hux warns, squirting shampoo into his hand and lathering up his hair, eyes drifting shut. This is all the permission Ren needs. As soon as he takes Hux into his mouth, Hux’s resolve crumbles really rather pitifully.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he groans. “Take as much time as you want.”

–

Hux is walking the corridors of the _Finalizer_ , making his way to the bridge. The ship is unusually quiet, but Hux hopes this is the sign of diligent hard work and not some disaster he’s missed in his sleep. There aren’t many troopers around and he tries to remember if there’s some big training exercise happening this morning. Instead of the bridge, he finds himself outside Ren's throne room. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He ignores it. Ren still hasn't divulged the new code to open the door so Hux takes off his glove to press his thumb to the override scanner beneath the keypad. The door slides open... and everything in the galaxy falls away.

The scavenger girl is dead on the floor. The lightsaber wound in her stomach smokes. Ren is cradling her in his arms.

Hux is somehow immediately at Ren's side. "Get up," he orders, triumph swelling in his chest. "We'll have to move quickly." But Ren just moves as if to shield the body from Hux. Hux reaches forward to grip Ren's shoulder. "Ren, it's _over_. You killed her. You won."

At this, Ren raises his head to look at Hux. His face is gaunt and wet with tears. He hisses, "It should have been _you_."

And then – Hux reels backwards.

The girl isn't dead. _It was a trick_ , he realises. Some Force trick – they fooled him – _together_. He reaches for his blaster but it’s not there. Rey stands, beautiful and terrible. She ascends the dais to sit on Ren's throne, which Hux sees is not made of grey durasteel, but the mangled corpses of his First Order officers.

Hux falls to the floor, horror-struck. He can’t breathe. _Not again_ , he thinks, _not again_. Reaching up instinctively, he tries to pry the crushing pressure from his throat, only to find there isn’t any. When he touches his neck, it’s been cut, and he sees now that he’s kneeling in a pool of his own blood. He looks up to see Kylo Ren standing over him, his burning red lightsaber held high –

Hux jolts awake, eyes rolling in his head.

He lies paralyzed on his back, unable to discern reality from sleep for what feels like an eternity. Finally, he sits up, drawing his knees up to his chest. He’s drenched in sweat. He glances down at Ren, who is sprawled out asleep beside him, his hair like a dark expanse of sky spilling across Hux’s pillows.

Hux feels sick at the sight of him.

He reaches out and touches the scar on Ren's cheek. Those eyes, black in the darkness, open just a sliver. Ren makes a small noise and turns his face into Hux's hand, brushing his lips against his palm. Slowly but with intent, Hux slides over Ren and settles atop him, thighs bracketing Ren’s hips. Ren makes another noise, still mostly asleep, but he raises his chin to show the long, white column of his throat. An invitation, like he wants Hux to put his mouth there. Hux's heart is still hammering so he grabs Ren's wrists and pins them by his head, squeezing hard enough that Ren opens his eyes. Hux leans down so they are nose to nose.

Ren easily breaks Hux's hold to stroke his large hands up and down Hux's thighs. With nothing to grip onto, Hux's nails bite into his own palms. “It was just a nightmare, Hux,” Ren whispers. He’s trying to comfort Hux but the idea that Ren saw his dream makes him even angrier. He feels like the things Ren did to him in the wake of Snoke’s death have been hidden behind a dam, but now it’s burst and Hux is flooded.

“Don't ever attack me again,” he croaks, his voice wrecked like his throat really has been slashed. “Do you understand?”

“You don't command me,” Ren’s voice is hard even though its thick with sleep. It's what he always used to say when they first met and Hux would try to control his tantrums. “As much as you've always wished you did. Those pointless fantasies of yours. Supreme Leader Hux. How do you like it?”

 _Armitage is a weak-willed boy…_ (His father's voice rings clear and unwelcome in his head, like the peal of a death knell. He can't tell if Ren plucked this from his memories or if after all these years, Hux is still so susceptible to the words of a dead man. He flinches regardless.)

“We are in _my_ bed,” Hux growls through gritted teeth. “In _my_ chambers. You are underneath _me_. From now on, you will promise me this. Do not ever harm me again. Not in front of my crew. Not when we are alone. _Never_. Do you understand?” Ren lies silent and still, where Hux is vibrating like he's about to shake apart. His windpipe still aches. He swallows around the pain. “Answer me.” Ren looks like he’s on the brink of drifting back off. Hux feels hot and cold all at once.

 _That's enough._ Hux had said it before, soft and placating, a tone he would not confess even under the most dire torture that he uses only for Ren. In the _Upsilon_ ’s cockpit on Crait, Ren had been so overcome with emotion that he seemed fit to burn the whole galaxy down, Skywalker and the Resistance and the First Order with it. And Hux had been forced to say it again, in the other tone Ren brings out of him: spitting mad. _THAT'S ENOUGH!_

But with Ren, there is no quarter. Nothing is ever too much, or too far, or enough.

Hux clambers off him, incensed – at Ren for being a bastard, and at himself for being an idiot.

“Get out.”

“What?”

“I said get out. It was a mistake for us to continue doing this. Leave my rooms at once.”

Ren groans and his body follows Hux's as Hux moves away from him. “I’m tired, I don't want to get up.”

“Tough shit. Stop touching me and get out.” But Ren's hand drifts over his hip and slides up his chest, fingers skimming one of Hux’s nipples. Hux shoves him hard. “I mean it, Ren. I'm not that fucking scavenger girl who you can seduce with sad eyes and gentle hands until I hand you a knife to stab me in the back with. Get out. Now.”

There's an excruciating silence, and then Ren swiftly gets out of the bed, throws on his clothes and leaves. Hux curls in on himself and pulls the covers over his head for the first time since he was a child. He doesn’t fall back to sleep.

-

The next morning, Hux feels like a waking corpse shuffling to the bridge.

Captain Cien, a new addition to the crew hastily promoted in the wake of recent heavy losses, efficient but relatively unknown to Hux, has command of the bridge when he gets there. He greets Hux far more heartily than the situation demands and every head on the bridge turns to watch Hux’s response.

“Good morning Captain. Next time I arrive on my bridge, perhaps you would like to speak a little louder? I believe there were a few species in the next star system that didn't hear you.”

The bridge goes silent. Cien looks like someone just dumped icy water over his head. Hux himself can't quite believe what just came out his mouth. Everyone in the First Order knows General Hux doesn't suffer sycophants but he is never rude or unprofessional with his crew, and that was both.

Sergeant Trik and Lieutenant Mitaka call Cien over to them with what Hux suspects is some fabricated excuse. Their heads are bent close together. A few minutes later, Cien approaches Hux at the viewport with a sympathetic look on his face. He opens his mouth, perhaps to apologise, and Hux really cannot handle that presently. He reaches out and pats Cien on the shoulder in full view of the whole bridge. This is an apology of his own, and Cien manages a small smile and snaps off a salute at Hux.

The crew are as industrious as ever throughout the day, giving their General a wide berth. Hux spends the rest of the day trying to save face. If one of his officers had let anything short of loss of limb so obviously affect their conduct, Hux would have demoted them, or worse.

Cien is relieved by Colonel Taelor in the late afternoon. Hux has known Taelor since they were both cadets, and the first thing she does is silently place a cup of water and a caffeine pill in front of Hux. He nods in gratitude and she winks. Hux thinks of Trik and Mitaka's conversation with Cien, low murmurs and furtive glances at Hux. They all must think he’s just exhausted: burnt out, low on patience and running on fumes.

Gods, he despises Kylo Ren.

Hux tosses back the pill and thinks that his insomnia being the _Finalizer_ ’s worst kept secret isn’t a patch on the things his crew didn’t know happened in his bedroom.

He begs off at six, handing the shift over to Taelor. "You'll have the bridge until the graveyard crew, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"If anything urgent happens, you may comm me."

"Will do, sir."

"Good evening, Taelor."

“Good evening, sir. Sleep well."

Hux should be so lucky.

He spends most of the night smoking an entire pack of cigarettes and coughing his lungs out. Millicent is a warm bundle on his lap and he runs a hand through her soft coat almost obsessively. When the cloud of smoke around him becomes too much, she hops off his legs and leaves the room. Hux suspects she's gone to sleep on his bed. He wouldn’t normally allow her to do that, but he figures at least one of them should be happy.

He watches a glowing red dot on his data pad that represents Kylo Ren, unmoving from his throne room, until he passes out slumped at his desk around three a.m. He wakes with his alarm at six and calls a medical droid to bring him a bacta tonic and an inhaler, because the cigarettes have left him voiceless and wheezing. He sends a quick message to inform the bridge he’ll take full command from the midday shift then collapses into bed beside his cat, asleep before he even hits the mattress.

–

At lunch, Hux is sat with some of the other officers on break. He feels even worse than the day before, hunched over his bitter tea. Mitaka pushes a bowl of soup under his nose, which means he must look just about as awful as he feels. He eats in silence whilst the other officers talk and joke before returning to their shift. When a hush falls over the room, Hux looks up.

Kylo Ren is standing in the doorway.

The officers scramble to their feet and stand to attention at the sight of him, muttering _Supreme Leader_ as he moves into the room. They’re shaken, Hux can tell. Ren has never entered the officers’ galley before.

Hux does not budge an inch. Ren’s gaze sweeps over him for a piercing moment, his eyes curiously red-rimmed. Like…. Like he’s been crying. _Surely not_ , Hux thinks. _Not over something like this_. Ren is walking toward the caf machine, of all things, and the officers lingering around it scuffle out of his way, their facial expressions ranging from mild alarm to outright terror. Everyone watches in silence as he gets a disposable cup and makes himself a black caf. It’s possibly the most surreal thing Hux has ever seen.

Ren takes a sip, then turns to face the room at large. “Everyone except the General, get out,” he orders. They move instantly, some grabbing their food as they go and some straight up fleeing. Hux is outraged. He wants to tell them to stay, but he also wants to avoid anyone getting asphyxiated.

He glares at Ren as he sits opposite Hux and takes another sip of his caf. “What do you think you are doing?”

“I wanted to speak with you,” Ren says, holding his cup between his hands like he relishes the warmth.

“There is absolutely nothing I wish to say to you,” Hux replies, spooning soup into his mouth with far more vigour and far less decorum than he’d usually display in front of anyone. But desperate times. If he’s done eating, he can start his shift and Ren won’t have grounds to keep him here.

“Did you ever love me?”

Hux chokes. “ _What?_ ”

“You heard.”

Ren looks at him with doleful eyes. Hux shakes his head. This cannot be happening. Anxiety and anger are simmering inside him in equal measure and he stands, wildly uncomfortable. Screw the soup. He needs to beat a tactical retreat right now.

“What could you possibly be hoping to achieve by asking me that? I am the commander of your armies and you are an unrelenting thorn in my side. That is the - the most inappropriate and asinine question I’ve ever heard, and I have heard a lot, and frankly - frankly I have better things to do. Like almost anything else. Excuse me.” He goes to pick up his tea and leave but the cup whizzes across the table until it rests beside Ren’s styro cup. Hux narrows his eyes.

“I want to know.” Ren says quietly.

“ _Why?_ ” Hux grinds out, leather of his gloves creaking from the pressure of balling his hands into fists. “Did _you_ ever love _me_? If you did, you had an exceedingly unorthodox way of showing it.”

Ren scoffs. “Because you were always such a sweet and tender lover.”

“Do you want me to tell you _I love you_ , Ren?” Hux shoots back, mindful not to shout but on the cusp of losing it. “Does your rebel bitch girlfriend not tell you often enough?”

“Careful,” Ren says, rising to his regrettably impressive full height. His voice is pitched dangerously low.

“What about mummy and daddy? Did they never tell poor Ben Solo how much they loved him when he was little?”

“I said, be fucking careful.”

“Perhaps I should be thanking my stars. If I’d paid you too much attention, I might have ended up with a lightsaber shoved through my back.”

The durasteel table suddenly wrenches itself from the floor and slams into the wall with an almighty crash, tea and caf and soup flying everywhere. _There he is_ , Hux thinks, brushing a few flecks of liquid off his coat. He retrieves his comm from his pocket and patches through to the trooper barracks. “Sanitation to the officers’ galley,” he mutters as he goes to leave.

When he draws level with Ren, Ren looks him dead in the face, eyes brimming with rage. Again, bizarrely, Hux can’t help but think he’s on the brink of tears. “You still might end up with a lightsaber shoved through your back.”

Hux rolls his eyes. “I won’t hold my breath.”

–

The First Order have just decimated a mining settlement on a sparsely populated planet in the Mid-Rim. They had gained intelligence that the settlement could be harbouring the fleeing Resistance, and the reaction had been swift and brutal, just the way Hux likes it.

It turns out, as Mitaka is telling Hux, not even one member of their wanted party was planetside, let alone hiding on the settlement when the airstrike blew it to hell. The confusion had come from the fact the settlement had correspondence with the Resistance around six months ago. Before their numbers had dwindled, the Resistance had aided them in a trade dispute that looked to turn violent and subsequently, the mining settlement had declared for them.

No dead rebels, which Hux doesn’t appreciate. But more dead rebel supporters, which he does. _If you dissent, you will be destroyed._ A mantra Hux has followed his entire life, with or without a superweapon.

Hux has stopped listening to Mitaka, who is still fumbling through his words, because that is what Mitaka does. Hux turns to face him because he wants him to shut up. "Thank you, Dopheld. Good work."

Mitaka glows at the use of his first name. "Th-thank you, sir. Happy to do it, sir."

So eager to please. Hux has always enjoyed that quality in Mitaka. He'd made him a lieutenant himself when he had come aboard the _Finalizer_ two years ago. He thought then, and still does, that maybe Mitaka didn’t get smacked about at the Academy enough, or maybe he did, a little too much. His timidity can’t all come from being occasionally terrorised by an idiot with a mask and a laser sword.

"General Hux, sir?" comes a voice. Hux turns to see a stormtrooper near one of the exits of the bridge.

"Yes?"

"The Supreme Leader has requested your presence, sir."

Speak of the devil.

Hux feels the temperature drop a few degrees around him. A quick glance shows everyone very pointedly engrossed in their tasks. "Has he indeed? We best not keep him waiting. Go on."

They pass the code breakers and communication bay on their way out. "One moment," he says to the trooper, who nods with a quiet _aye, sir_.

He sticks his head into the bay. "Anything for me?" They all jump to attention at the sound of his voice. "At ease," he says with a wave of his hand. "I hope you’ve got something for me to tell our great and fearless leader. I worry the destruction of one mining village won't be enough to save our equipment from that lightsaber." The team titters and Hux is gladdened by it. They may fear Ren when he's breathing down their necks, but these are Hux's people and the crew of the _Finalizer_ have always enjoyed their General's quips about the dark shadow that is Kylo Ren.

A code breaker steps forward. "Sir, we've been decrypting the flight patterns of the rebel freighter. At present we can triangulate them to around five parsecs. By tomorrow we may be even closer."

"Five parsecs," Hux nods. "Not bad. But I will need better than maybe by tomorrow."

“Yes, sir." She salutes and gets back to work.

"Anything else?" he asks. The stormtrooper is hovering nervously. _Let Ren wait_ , Hux thinks with spite.

"Sir. I have something. We hacked the rebel lines, the closed ones they use on their fighters, about a week back. We got something not long ago." It’s one of the communications workers nearer the back, who had been whispering furiously with two of his colleagues since Hux has stood them down from attention. His colleagues don't seem to share his enthusiasm for telling Hux whatever he has to say.

"Good or bad?" Hux says, eyes slitting.

The comms worker grins. "Well, sir, if you ask me, I'd say that depends what side you're on."

–

Hux is in Ren’s throne room, standing at parade rest. Having just completed his report on the mining settlement and the possible location of the Millennium Falcon, he waits for Ren’s response.

He’s been waiting a few minutes, actually. Ren’s concentration is seemingly drifting. This confuses Hux. He would have thought such a breath-takingly violent creature as Ren would relish the slaughter of the even wrong group of people. Maybe he really is starting to take his role seriously. Maybe he too is finally kept awake by the weight of leading, as Hux is.

“We’re closing in, Supreme Leader. Soon we’ll crush them.” Ren nods absentmindedly. He seems shrunken somehow and he still hasn’t uttered a word. Hux finds he can’t sit any longer on the news the comms worker gave him. “There's more,” he says.

“What?” Ren finally speaks, dragging his gaze up to look at Hux.

Hux licks his dry lips. “May I… - Sensitive information. I’d like to dismiss your guard.” Ren shrugs one shoulder and waves his hand. Hux turns to the troopers at the door and jerks his chin. “Wait outside,” he orders. They go.

Hux feels like he’s about to heft a sledgehammer down onto a bomb.

“What?” Ren asks again.

“Supreme Leader, General Leia Organa of the Resistance is dead.”

Ren closes his eyes.

Hux carries on, “I thought you ought to be made aware but, in truth, it’s just snatches of talk that the comms team have picked up. Rudimentary at best, conflicting at worst. They can’t decide if it was a few hours or days ago, if it was an engine explosion, an injury, illness. For all we know, it could be a ruse to –”

Ren holds up a hand to stop him. It’s trembling. “It’s not,” he says, voice barely there.

“How can you –”

“I felt it.” Ren's hand drifts to his chest. He's even paler than usual.

Suddenly, with horrible clarity, Hux realises why it looked like Ren had been crying when he came into the break room. He sees the entire conversation for what it was.

_Did you ever love me?_

Because if Hux didn’t, every person in the galaxy who ever gave a damn about Ren is gone.

“It was an engine explosion two days ago. When her heart stopped, I felt it.” Ren’s face is blank but he’s in agony. Hux doesn’t need the Force to know that.

He swallows. And says, inexplicably, even though he’s never wondered it before, “Are you... alright?”

–

_Are you alright?_

When was the last time someone asked him that?

Ren remembers his nineteenth birthday better than he remembers most of his childhood. That boy, even on the brink of his destiny, is so far removed from the man Ren is now that he can envision himself as clearly as if watching a stranger.

He was a dark and haughty child in robes a little too short from his recent growth spurt, who had merely grunted when his uncle had chucked him under the chin in the morning with a smile and a quiet _Happy birthday, Ben_. He’d been meditating before he had to train with the others. He wanted it to pass as a normal day and could have died of embarrassment when he sensed the _Falcon_ landing near the temple. When he got outside, Han was embracing Luke then striding towards him, arms outstretched.

“There he is!” Han had cried like he did every year, enveloping his son in a hug. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” Ben had said, like every year.

Han had pulled back and cupped Ben’s face in his hands. “Look at ya. Taller than me already,” He’d grinned and tweaked Ben’s nose. “And almost as handsome.”

Ben had squirmed away, shaking his hair over his face. “Well, mom didn't keep you around for your brains, did she?”

Han’s smile had grown soft watching Ben self-consciously try to cover his ears. “She wanted to come but –”

“Work. I know. I sensed it in the Force.”

“You did?”

“No. She sent me a holo.”

Han had clapped Ben on the shoulder and shook his head, which was what he always did when his son displayed his grouchy, awkward sense of humour. Ben hated it.

“The _Falcon_ ’s missed ya, kid. Wanna take her for a spin?”

“Yes,” Ben had said, because he did.

Ben had flown the _Falcon_ far away from the temple, speeding right out into space and looping wide back down into the atmosphere, making Han white-knuckle the co-pilot's chair and hoot with laughter. When Han cajoled him into helping with the constant, endless repairs the ship needed, he’d sulked, and Han had chuckled. “You look like Leia when you do that,” he’d said and ruffled Ben’s hair. Annoyed by this assessment, Ben had kept moving the next tool Han needed away with the Force until he’d sat up with his arms crossed. “I know whatcha doin’, Jedi Master. Can’t fool your old man.”

“Who’s fooling?” Ben had asked, staring at the floor. Something in his voice must have been off. Snoke had been growing heavier in his mind by the day. Han had taken off his goggles and looked his son in the face, frowning.

“Y’alright, bud? Something eatin’ ya?”

Ben had shrugged and decided to use Han’s favourite response to this question. “Just a Rancor, thanks for asking.”

Han had guffawed, and Ben had been taken over for a moment with a staggering anger that almost didn’t feel his own, that Han hadn’t pressed him to give a proper answer. When he left at sunset, he’d crushed Ben against his chest again. Ben had hugged him back, if only to keep up the pretence that nothing was changing.

“I love you, Ben,” Han had said, still holding him.

“I love you too, dad,” Ben had lied.

Han had brushed Ben’s hair back from his forehead and kissed him. Watching the _Falcon_ take off, Ben had felt a pit open up in his stomach. It was the last time he saw Han Solo before he killed him.

 

Ren's eyes snap to meet Hux’s. His nostrils flare. “Why shouldn't I be?” He spits. “She was rebel scum, a traitor, she was –”

 _Still your mother_ , Hux thinks, and Ren hears, and finds with the thought a strangely fierce and bitter resentment from Hux that he doesn’t understand. Without another word or permission to do so, Hux turns and leaves.

–

Hux keys in to open the door to his chambers a little earlier than usual. He’s just overseen the beginning of what is set to be a productive evening shift, and he’s looking forward to perhaps getting his first full night’s sleep in a while. In the days following confirmation of Organa’s death, the First Order has been a hive of victorious activity. His door slides open and he balks at the sight in front him.

Ren is sitting on the edge of his bed. Hux hasn’t seen him since his mother died. His hackles rise even more when he sees Millicent curled in Ren's lap. She opens her deep brown eyes and meows at the sight of him. Ren is stroking her little head with his knuckles. He has the gall to smirk at Hux.

“Is that a blaster in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?”

“It’s a blaster,” Hux deadpans, striding into the room, smacking the button for the door to close with one hand and unholstering said blaster with the other. He aims it at Ren’s heart. "Millie, off," he says sharply.

"Oh, come on, Hux," Ren admonishes. "When was the last time you paid attention to her?"

Hux takes the safety off his blaster, deeply insulted. Hux has been a scientist, an engineer and a leader of armies since the age of ten. If Ren is under the impression he can't look after a cat, he's even stupider than he looks. And besides, if what he's heard from walking past stormtroopers in the halls is true, Millicent has somehow been sneaking out his chambers and into the training rooms, where the younger troopers have no doubt been showering the only soft thing they've ever known with affection. Hux should put a stop to it but if he's brutally honest with himself, he can't stand the idea of his cat alone in his chambers all day with nothing but a service droid for company. He suspects the service droid is the one letting her out.

“Not that it's even remotely your business,” he says, waspish, "but this morning, when she woke me up by sitting on my face." Ren sniggers. He boops Millicent on the nose and she licks his fingertip. "Millie!" Hux snaps his fingers down by his side. "Off, now." She leaps from Ren's lap at the sound and winds her body around Hux's legs, purring. "Get to bed, you traitor," he mutters.

She slinks off and Ren watches her go, a charmed expression on his face. "She likes me," he says.

Hux scoffs. "She's the only one around here who does. How did you get into my chambers?” Ren does his head tilt, opening his mouth but Hux cuts in before he can respond. “Don’t say, ‘with the Force’.”

“With the Force,” Ren says.

“Get out.”

“You should try going to bed at this time more often, General,” Ren says breezily. “You look like shit.”

Hux’s lips curl back from his teeth. “Looked in a mirror recently, Supreme Leader?”

At this precise moment, Ren is looking at Hux’s blaster. “Are you going to actually shoot me this time?”

“I’d certainly like to,” Hux spits.

“Go on then.” Ren is not smiling anymore. Hux is suddenly pulled across the room until the barrel of his blaster is pressed between Ren’s eyes and his finger is curling around the trigger of its own volition. “Think about it. Everyone would finally bow to you alone. The galaxy in the palm of your hand. With me out the way, you’d finally have everything you wanted.”

 _Not everything_ , Hux thinks. He twitches his hand and finds he can move it by himself, so he puts away his blaster and sits down next to Ren.

“I think it would be exceedingly unsatisfying if you just _let_ me shoot you.” Hux looks at Ren, who has closed his eyes, his mouth downturned. Hux swallows and shifts, unsure what to do with his empty hands or what to say. He never used to be nervous, considered pacing or inane babble a waste of energy. That was before Starkiller.

“You’re an orphan now,” He says. “Like me.”

“Great,” Ren grouses.

Hux is suddenly, overwhelmingly desperate for a smoke, so he gets up and leaves Ren where he is. Walks away to his office, to his cabinets, fishes out a cigarette. Scratches his snoozing cat behind the ears. He lights the cigarette there and goes back to the bedroom with it, ashtray in hand. Takes a long drag, considers blowing the smoke in Ren’s face, but aims it away from him in the end. Ren, who is still sitting silent and unmoving. Hux can’t stand it. He offers him the cigarette but Ren shakes his head minutely. Hux clears his throat.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Why?” Ren snaps, fast and sudden and hard like the crack of a whip.

Hux levels his gaze with Ren’s. “Because I know how it is to lose a mother.”

Ren makes a face. “Your mother wasn’t, wasn’t –”

“She was a servant in my father’s kitchens at the Academy,” Hux says, taking himself by surprise. He feels heat catch in his cheeks, but Ren is looking at him with an expression that is entirely too open for Hux’s liking. He pushes on, “I don’t remember her name or if I ever even knew it. My father only allowed me to see her on my birthday for a few hours. I was five when the Republic laid siege to Arkanis. When the Imperial fleet came for us… I was screaming for her, I didn’t want to leave her behind to die. My father had to carry me onto the ship. The first night when everyone else was in bed, he came to my room. ‘If I ever catch you crying over that woman, or anything, ever again’ he said, ‘I’ll make you wish you hadn’t been born, boy’.” It’s Hux’s turn now to smirk at Ren. “Little did Brendol Hux know that his bastard son already wished he hadn’t been born.”

Ren doesn’t respond. Hux’s stomach is churning. He’s been speaking for a while. He brings his cigarette back to his lips, determined to keep his hand steady. Mortified, he blurts out, “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

“I know,” Ren breathes. He still looks miserable as sin. It’s starting to grate on Hux.

“You think you had reason to hate your father,” he mutters.

“Brendol used to hurt you.”

“A lot of people have hurt me.”

“Including me.”

“Including you.”

Hux figures this can’t get any worse, so he stubs out his cigarette. He starts undressing, meticulously re-organising his clothes and running a lint brush over them in his wardrobe until he’s down to his socks, underwear and grey undershirt. He moves toward Ren until their knees knock together and he leans forward until their foreheads touch. He says, “Take off your clothes.”

“You said it was a mistake for us to continue doing this,” Ren says, even as he starts undoing the clasps on his body armour.

“Yes,” Hux replies. “And now I’m saying, take off your clothes.”

He moves back and watches Ren strip off. He’d always liked this bit before – before the fall of Starkiller, before the scavenger girl and the BB-unit and FN-2187. He has to stop himself from even the hint of a smile as he watches Ren clumsily fold his clothes at the foot of the bed. Ren sniffs and stands up before him, broad and pale and naked as the day he was born, dark moles scattered like constellations across his body. He sits back down, this time in the middle of the bed. Legs crossed, hands on his knees, looking at Hux expectantly. Hux puts one knee on the bed so it dips near where Ren is sat. He can hear Ren breathing. He swings the other leg over to Ren’s other side, and lowers himself down into Ren’s lap.

He looks into those big, brown eyes for a moment but when Ren leans forward for a kiss, he draws back. “No,” he murmurs.

Ren, amazingly, concedes. Instead, he ducks his head, and runs his hands under Hux’s undershirt, slowly drawing it over Hux’s head and tossing it onto the floor. Hux huffs.

“You’re folding that later,” he grumbles.

Ren ignores him and slides his hands down Hux’s back. He slips them under the waistband of Hux’s underwear and lower. “Keeping your socks on?” He asks, his warm breath fanning over Hux’s face.

“Might do.”

“Good,” Ren grips him and pulls him closer. “I don’t want your cold toes waking me up in the morning.”

Hux raises his eyebrows. “What makes you think you’ll be here in the morning?”

Ren does a strange, crooked smile he rarely does, and goes in again for a kiss. Again, Hux leans back, but this time, Ren sighs in frustration. “What –”

“Be quiet,” Hux orders, placing his hands on Ren’s shoulders and pushing him back onto the bed. He goes willingly, if a bit mystified.

“What do you want, Hux?”

Hux swallows then licks his lips nervously. He sees Ren’s eyes track this movement. He runs his fingertips over the muscles of Ren’s chest and arms, making him tremble. With firm resolve, Hux wraps both his hands around Ren’s throat and squeezes experimentally.

Ren inhales sharply, his eyes flashing. Hux pauses. “If you want to leave, leave now,” he says steadily. He can feel Ren’s thumbs stroking the skin of his hips but now they grow still. “But… But if you do, I’m never letting you back into my bed again. Ever. I’m serious this time, Ren.”

Ren stares up at him and for a moment Hux thinks, _this is it_. But then he runs both his hands up the length of Hux’s body and encircles Hux’s wrists, pressing down. “Apply pressure,” he says, casually, like they’re discussing star patterns. “You can’t just squeeze or it won’t be the same.”

It’s almost embarrassing how these ten or so words have Hux’s whole body aflame in an instant.

He tightens his fingers slightly, like a warning, and as soon as Ren takes a deep breath, he does exactly as Ren instructed. Ren’s body immediately shudders in protest against the cut-off air supply but he doesn’t release Hux’s wrists. Hux leans down and finally kisses him, hard and bruising as Ren did in Snoke’s throne room.

Ren moans low in his chest and kisses back in earnest.

He’s a live wire beneath Hux, writhing and squirming and touching Hux everywhere he can reach. Hux has the briefest concern that it’s more death throes than pleasure until Ren grinds his hips right up into Hux and Hux feels Ren’s erection like a hot brand against his thigh. Hux does an undignified wriggle out of his underwear, kicking them off the bed. He pulls his mouth away from Ren’s with a final nip of his teeth, to look at Ren’s face, which is turning purple.

The Armitage of his youth – who could barely recall his mother's face and plotted the death of the man who sired him, who trained child soldiers younger than himself and dreamt of ruling the galaxy – sees a weak body beneath him. A body full of yearning and at his mercy, a body he could easily put to death right here and now. In so many ways, Hux is still that cold, ambitious boy. A colder and more ambitious man. A destroyer of worlds.

_Did you ever love me? Did you ever love me? Did you, did you, did you –_

He lets Ren breathe. Slides one hand up into that long, black hair and the other down past Ren’s stomach. Ren arcs.

“Fuck me,” he gasps. His eyes are glassy, head thrown back to expose his neck. It’s red but not bruised. That’s alright with Hux. There are other ways. He tilts his head down, sinking his teeth into the soft skin beneath Ren’s jaw, drawing another moan from Ren. His hands are in the bed sheets now, clutching them around his fingers. “Fuck me. Please.”

“Aw,” Hux croons, teasing, with intentional malice. “Do you really want it?” He scrapes his teeth against Ren’s ear, twisting the hand he has between Ren's legs.

“Fucking – _yes_ ,” Ren whines, “I want it, come on.”

Hux doesn’t think he’s ever been this turned on in his life.

“Beg me again,” he whispers.

“Please fuck me,” Ren pants without hesitation.

“One more time.”

“Hux. Please.”

“Well –” Hux begins, but Ren interrupts him by pressing a deep but strangely tender kiss to Hux’s mouth. Hux’s heart flutters. When Ren releases him, Hux looks down at him with a smile like a knife. “Since you asked so nicely.”

–

The _Finalizer_ explodes out of lightspeed in the Cvetaen system.

They scramble to get shuttles and TIE fighters out of the loading bay and into space with the kind of slapdash hurry that would normally send Hux into an apoplexy. As it is, Hux is standing with the piloting crew of a shuttle, watching the lines of stormtroopers down in the cabin sway from side to side. "You better be right about this, Ren," he warns.

Ren doesn't say a word, doesn't even glance at Hux. He's pacing like a caged animal from one end of the craft to the other.

He'd shaken Hux awake no more than an hour ago. "I know where they are," he'd said, eyes wild. "I know where the Resistance is hiding."

Hux had practically fallen out of bed, reaching blearily into his wardrobe for a uniform. "You were talking to her again," he'd said and winced. Even to himself, he didn't just sound disapproving – he sounded jealous.

Ren was watching him dress with a frantic look on his face but still managed to roll his eyes. "Yes, and you're welcome."

They'd left Hux's chambers together.

"How did you glean this information, exactly?" Hux enquired as they hurried to the bridge, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Rey showed me. I asked her to tell me and in thinking how much she didn't want me to know, she showed me." Hux stopped in the corridor. Ren had just grabbed him by the sleeve of his uniform and dragged him along. "We don't have time for your scepticism," he growled.

"That is not credible intel, Ren," Hux had protested. "You’ve told me she’s more powerful than that. What if it’s a trick?"

"It’s not. You said yourself we’re closing in. I have been too. She's been broken apart since Luke and...and Leia. I know this to be true."

"But how?"

Ren had sounded exasperated. "You don't understand the Force."

Hux had scowled and wrenched himself free of Ren's grip in time for them to come onto the bridge. "That's not an answer," he'd told Ren, before he began barking orders to a surprised graveyard crew.

Surrounded by his troops now, Hux does not feel anywhere near as put together as he'd like to be. He envies Ren, who has a hood drawn over his head. Hux can't be sure if he's done this to help focus on what's about to transpire or to hide his tousled mop and the bite mark on his neck.

"Nearly there," the navigation officer says.

“And?” Hux says, his voice a little too heavy with anticipation.

“The Resistance are here, sir.”

Hux looks to Ren, who is prowling around down in the low-lit shuttle. As the planet swells beneath them, Hux approaches him through the troopers. "Do they know we're coming?" He asks in a low voice.

"Yes," Ren replies, equally quiet.

"It won’t be an easy fight then."

"No," Ren agrees, meeting Hux’s gaze. His face is mostly obscured. There's a primal look in his eyes. "But it won’t be a long one either."

"Coming in hot, sirs," the pilot calls. Hux can already hear the scream of the TIE fighters and the return fire of the Resistance's X-wings.

"If you fail..." he breathes, leaning forward into Ren's space. "If you die, I will not mourn you."

Ren smiles, surprisingly warm, considering how he's so clearly full to the brim with murderous intent. He leans in too, like they are sharing a secret. "I can always tell when you're lying, Hux."

They land with a thump. There's a sound like rain on the outside of the hull as they are fired upon. "Lower the ramp," Ren shouts to the pilot. When the ramp hits the ground, warm air and the sounds of battle rush up into the shuttle. Ren shrugs off his cloak and it flows off his shoulders and lands at Hux's feet. Hux thinks they both have more to say, but there is no time to say it.

"Supreme Leader," Hux says instead, with a nod.

Ren nods back, “General.”

He ignites his lightsaber and Hux watches him lead the stormtroopers out of the shuttle.

**Author's Note:**

> ROS. And what do you want?  
> LITTLEFINGER. Oh, everything, my dear. Everything there is. _(Game of Thrones, 1.7)_
> 
> god i love these guys. thanks for coming to my ted talk. sorry about leia.


End file.
